


The Shadow Between

by palmtreelights



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Time Force
Genre: Baking, Cooking, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Friendship, Gen, Home, Screw Destiny, Therapy, Time Travel Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmtreelights/pseuds/palmtreelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where is home for someone whose life spans two points in time that are one thousand years apart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shadow Between

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the usual suspects for their unfailing support, especially when I went from "this will be short, 2-3 scenes at most" to "eh maybe around 2k" to "I've lost control, nothing can save me now." And special thanks to my expat now re-pat friend, who first put to words a feeling we've struggled with for years.

A year ago, Jen would not have let her friends see her this way—tearstained cheeks, shaking shoulders, resting her forehead against the window of the time ship as the Silver Hills of the year 2001 disappears.

But then, a year ago, she had not thought that the criminal she’d let escape, the one she’d followed through time with her team to bring back into custody and make pay for his crimes and her then fiancé’s presumed murder, would have come willingly along, and that he and his daughter would be watching her from across the room, standing with her friends— _friends_ , not just teammates—after opening his eyes to the error of his ways.

It’s going to be a long trip back, a long life without Wes, and a hard fight to keep her and the others’ memories of their mission intact. And she will fight, if she has to. Defying Time Force when her heart knows better what to do has become easy for her.

“Jen.”

She draws in a shuddering breath as she lifts her head and looks at Trip. His eyes are red, watering right before her. He hasn’t stopped crying since they said good-bye to Wes, either.

“We’re—” He pauses, swallowing, and clears his throat. “We’re going to go lie down.”

“Right,” she murmurs. Looking at the others, she nods. “There should be enough cots for all six of us.”

Ransik nods, slow and solemn, mouthing _thank you_ for only Jen to see.

“I’ll catch up with you,” Jen tells Trip. “I—I need a minute.”

Trip nods, touching her shoulder, giving her a brief smile before he heads off to join the others on their way out into the hall.

Jen holds her breath until the door shuts behind them, then lets it out in a _whoosh_. The ship’s windows have gone black, shielding its occupants from the vortex outside. She places her hands on the glass, her eyes unfocused as she pictures the clocktower, the palm trees outside, the business she and the others had run, the beach where they’d said good-bye to their temporary home.

There will be much to do when they arrive, but with so much of the paperwork filled out ahead of time—before their departure, before good-bye, before she’d given herself permission to speak her heart—there’s nothing more to do now but wait.

Breathing deep, she pulls away from the window and goes to join the others. If they are still awake, they pretend not to be, giving her space and silence as she lies down. The hum of the ship’s machinery, the dimming lights, and the perfectly set temperature in the room make it easy relax, which she so badly needs to do after the past several days. Difficult battles, trips on the time ship, heartbreak—all of it worth it, to know the world is safe, both in the past and in the future.

All any of them will have of Silver Hills is their memories, and if Time Force thinks they’ll give them up now that their friends in the past are safe, they’re wrong.

In the moments before she falls asleep, Jen starts to think of what she’ll say to their superiors when they get back to Millennium City.

 

* * *

 

Alex is there when they arrive, a handful of armored officers flanking him. He remains at attention as the Rangers disembark and the officers escort Ransik and Nadira to their designated holding cells. The fact that half of Time Force wasn’t here to perform that very task is a sign they’ve read and believed her report about Ransik’s surrender, but it doesn’t set Jen at ease.

Her gaze is hard as she watches the doors shut, and in the silence that remains, she readies herself for a fight.

“Excellent work, Rangers,” says Alex, serious and calm.

So unlike Wes, even though they look so much alike.

“We’re not going through memory adaptation,” Jen tells him. “We don’t care what happens. We discussed it as a team and decided—”

“Memory adaptation has been temporarily suspended,” Alex interrupts.

Jen’s eyes go wide.

“You’re lying,” says Katie, taking a step that brings her closer to Jen.

“Am I?” Alex turns to Trip, eyebrows arched.

Trip is silent for a few seconds, but Jen keeps her eyes on Alex.

“He’s telling the truth,” says Trip, voice quiet, awed.

Alex nods. “When I read your reports, I submitted a request to reconsider the necessity and validity of the procedure. In your case, you’re the only witnesses to Ransik’s peaceful surrender. But aside from that—” He pauses, looking at each of them in turn as he steps closer.

Jen’s shoulders tense with his every step, and when he stops a few feet in front of her, she feels as though her muscles might snap.

“When you left a second time to stop Ransik from destroying Silver Hills,” he says, and Jen swears he means this more for her than the others, “I realized it might not be in anyone’s best interest to continue requiring memory adaptation. The process not only wipes out memories of mundane interactions, but also eliminates any knowledge with applications to Time Force’s mission. Yes, reports capture that, but firsthand experience is vital for ensuring an officer’s ability to perform on the field.

“In short,” he continues, now looking at the others again, “it’s inefficient. My request may ultimately be rejected, but I believe my arguments are compelling. In any case, for the time being, you’ll be keeping your memories.”

Trip sighs, giving a weak laugh. Jen turns and sees him leaning against Katie, who is hugging him close and smiling into his hair. Lucas, meanwhile, nods, a small smile on his face.

Facing Alex again, Jen nods, squinting against the stinging in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Breathing deep, he nods back. “All other post-travel procedures are still in effect.”

“Right.” Good. She’s not sure she’d know what to do if those procedures weren’t in place. Looking over at the others, she says, “Let’s get started.”

 

* * *

 

Hours later, when the dust has settled, Jen goes up onto the roof. Ostensibly, she’s there to take in the view of the sunset over the city skyline. But in truth, it’s because she knows Alex will be there, where he proposed to her what seems like an eternity ago.

He does not disappoint, ever predictable—and when did that become the word she associates first with him, rather than dependable? He’s still the same Alex she’d said yes to, but she is—

She is here, and she is back, but she isn’t _home_.

Those thoughts are for later, though. Right now, there is a conversation she needs to have, and only one person she can have it with. She crosses to the railing, to the little nook between pillars, sliding in between him and the steel, close enough that they can keep their voices low, but far enough apart that she feels like she can breathe.

“I’d forgotten what this view was like,” she says, to break the ice, and because she is actually taken by it, the golden sunlight glinting off the buildings, the hover cars floating up and down the streets, the people in their almost uniform outfits. It’s beautiful and familiar, but it pales in comparison to the view from the clocktower, the colors and clumsiness of the people and technology both.

He’s seen it, too. He knows.

But that isn’t the point.

“It’s a new moon tonight,” he says, and when she looks at him, his gaze is still forward, on the city.

It feels like a betrayal before she even opens her mouth, but she says it anyway, turning to watch the sunset. “In Silver Hills, all those old lightbulbs in the street lights and buildings make for different colors. It’s almost like the city is a starry sky.”

His nod registers in her peripheral vision, and her chest tightens. This will hurt, as it already does, but it would hurt more to ignore it.

She draws in a breath, wills herself not to cry, and says, “I’m not sorry.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to be.”

Biting her lips, she turns to face him. “I thought you were dead. I get that you couldn’t tell us you were okay, but—”

“You don’t need to explain anything,” he says, meeting her gaze. “I understand.”

“No. No, you _don’t_. That’s why I want to tell you this. I _need_ to.” Sniffling, she looks out at the city and shakes her head. She’s supposed to be more _together_ for this, stronger and calmer, like Alex is. No matter what, he always keeps his cool, and that was part of why she’d been so drawn to him. Aside from his understated kindness before she became an officer, she’d always been able to count on him.

She’d thought that, as a leader, she’d be able to be the same. And maybe she has been, maybe the others would tell her so, if she asked them. But now, when she most needs to be calm and collected, she’s left scrambling to keep herself from falling to pieces in front of this man who fought so hard, in his own way, for the future of the whole world, and whose heart she’s surely broken.

He stays silent, giving her space to think and try to sort out her thoughts, forever vigilant of what other people need of him. She smiles at the thought, but the grin feels shaky and frail.

“I didn’t—” she starts, but her voice falters. She breathes deep and slow, holding in the breath a moment, and tries again. “I didn’t get to mourn you. All I could think about was putting Ransik in prison to pay for what he’d done. And I had the others to think about, too, so we just— I just kept going. Kept fighting. I felt like part of me died with you.”

Her gaze falls to the street below them, and she hears more than sees him shift beside her, relaxing his posture just the slightest bit. It’s as open as he ever is, when they’re not somewhere private, and she takes heart in that. He doesn’t have to stay, doesn’t have to indulge her. Not anymore. Yet here he is.

“And after I’d finally accepted it, you came back, and—” She squeezes her eyes shut, memories of that moment coming back to her with crystal clarity. “I thought you’d changed, but that’s not it.” Biting her lips, she takes another deep breath and turns to face him, and she is left speechless by how much he looks like his distant ancestor, left one thousand years in the past to live out a long and happy life that leads to this moment, right now.

“I’m the one who changed,” she says. “And I’m not sorry that I did. I’m— I never meant to hurt you, and I still love you, I just—” Sighing, she rubs her thumb over where her engagement ring used to be, a habit she still hasn’t broken. Maybe she never will, but she’ll at least stop expecting to find a ring there. “I’m not the person I was before I saw you die. And I know that memory adaptation would fix that, but I don’t want it to. I don’t care how much it hurts to know I can’t be with Wes. I _never_ want to forget him, or our mission, or all the time we spent in the year 2001.”

At first, all he does is nod, and Jen is sure that he’s going to tell her good-bye and walk away, out of her life forever. This is the first time she’s considered the possibility. Life in Millennium City will be hard enough without Wes, but to lose one of the few constants she has here would make it so much worse.

Then he starts talking, and she has to lean against the metal pillar for support as the tension leaves her frame.

“You’re right,” he says, the formal edge gone from his voice, his whole face. “I don’t understand. I couldn’t possibly understand how you felt, how you feel. Not telling you I was alive—that’s my fault. I chose to follow existing procedure. I was hurtful.”

Yes, he was, but she has forgiven him for that. Still, she nods, both to agree and to prompt him to continue.

“I don’t blame you for what’s happened.” He pauses, looks at the sky, where the brightest stars are peeking out over the sun’s fading light and the illumination of the city below. “If I really had died, I would’ve wanted that for you, to find someone who can make you happy.” After a moment, he meets her gaze again. “It would be far too selfish, far too cruel to ask you to undergo memory adaptation. Practical reasoning aside, I would be asking you to live a lie. All of us would. That isn’t fair to you or the others. You’ve formed stronger bonds with each other through the experience, and you—”

She thinks at first that he pauses for effect, but when he reaches out to brush tears off her cheeks, she realizes she’s crying. Funny, she hadn’t even felt it.

“You deserve to choose which memories to keep, and which to let go.”

“All of them,” she tells him, a fresh wave of tears tumbling down her cheeks. “I want to keep _all_ of them. The ones of you, the ones of Silver Hills—I can’t be without them. Even if they were erased, I’d know, somehow, they were there once.”

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “I have every confidence that Time Force will reconsider their stance on the procedure. Whether or not it ceases to be required going forward, I would wager everything on their not requiring it of you and the others.”

“Thank you.” She touches his shoulder, smiling through her tears, and when he smiles back, she closes the distance between him and hugs him like she’ll drown if she lets go. “Thank you,” she repeats, again and again, as he holds her close, shielding her from everything and everyone.

If there’s only one thing from her old life that she hopes stays the same, it’s the trust they have in one another. And if this is any indication, it will remain right and true through every storm that life may throw at either of them.

 

* * *

 

Storms might be preferable to this slow, lingering melancholy.

Time Force decides to deliberate longer on the matter of memory adaptation, but in the meantime, the request to not require it of the Rangers is approved.

Jen should be happy. She should feel more joy than Katie and Trip and Lucas combined. As she hugs each of them in turn, giggling as she begs Katie not to crush her, laughing next to Trip when Lucas tells them all to be careful with his hair, she is smiles and laughter and the picture of delight.

Then she looks at Alex, who has delivered the news, and her grin fades around the edges, and he nods, slightly. He knows. He may not know _why_ any better than she does, but he knows, and the burden is no longer hers to bear alone. That helps.

Good thing, because there’s still so much to do.

At first, she hates the meetings, the one on one, so-called conferences with superior officers and approved medical personnel. She answers their questions and gives her accounts of the mission, with a steady gaze and voice, when all she wants to do is keep the stories to herself and her teammates. What used to be the place she loved most, the place that gave her purpose, is now too small for someone who’s seen so much, and too big for someone who’s always aware of the one person not here with her. Everything is a reminder of what they’ve all left behind, and she wonders if she’d be able to do it by herself, to steal a time ship and go back.

That thought dies when she sees her parents again, two days after coming back. She blames her lack of euphoria on exhaustion, from the mission and the travel and everything that’s happened since, and she stops hating the procedures and the regulations and starts hating herself. She has so much here, people who love her, and she’s too caught up in the last few months to feel any of it.

Ransik’s case goes before the tribunal, and she and the others all testify. He gets a light, if just sentence, which he accepts with a grace that Jen envies. He’s the one who caused everyone so much grief, and yet it’s Jen who feels stuck in a fog, stuck one thousand years in the past.

Nadira gets off easier, given her only successful plan was breaking her father out of Time Force custody and starting the Rangers on their journey in the first place.

Work begins to wind down after that. Time Force puts the Rangers on mandatory leave with pay, a free vacation that seems to Jen like it’s less about their wellbeing and more about figuring out what to do with them.

“That isn’t true,” Alex says to her when she tells him so. “It’s only because all of you need time to adjust, to readapt to life here.”

The word _adapt_ sends a chill through her. It’s not what he means, but she thinks of memory adaptation, as if this whole thing is some sort of trick, or a test to see if not forcing them into it will work.

But that’s not the case. It would be easier if it were, in some ways, because then she would know what to do. Fight, with every ounce of strength she possesses. Fight for herself and for her teammates.

“Yeah,” she says, sighing away the thought. “It’s just… a lot harder than I thought it’d be.”

“Don’t worry, Jennifer.” He smiles at her. “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

 

* * *

 

Katie and Trip start going out, and Lucas starts to get to know Nadira.

“I’m happy for you,” Jen tells each of her teammates, whenever the subject comes up. She smiles, laughs, pretends she’s okay, so the guilt will disappear from their eyes when a date gets mentioned or a little story gets told. “Really.”

And she is.

“ _Really_ ,” she tells Alex, when they take lunch in the late summer sunshine. It’s nearing the end of their two full weeks of leave. He’s been taking lunch with her at least every other day, a good friend and an even better confidant. “ _Someone_ should get to have that, and all of them deserve it.”

He has the good grace not to finish the thought for her, and not to ask her to finish it herself. The unspoken words reek of self-pity, and that won’t help her move on.

“Have you talked with anyone about this?” He pauses, then clarifies, “With the doctor you spoke with when you arrived?”

“No.” She gazes down at her meal of vegetables and chick peas, frowning at it like a child being scolded. “I passed my initial evaluation, so she told me it was my choice whether or not to have any more sessions.”

Alex nods. “I think it might be helpful to tell her all of this.”

“Why?” Jen looks around the courtyard, at the people going about their lives with smiles on their faces. “That won’t change anything. She’ll probably just tell me to have my memories wiped— sorry, _suggest_ that I _consider_ it.”

“If she does, you can file a formal complaint and request a moratorium be issued on the subject.”

“And then I’ll be right back where I started.” Sighing, she shakes her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I just need to start coming to work again. Being on the most boring patrol ever _has_ to be better than just sitting around in my apartment and hunting down cookie recipes from forever ago. When did we, as a society, decide to stop making sweets and stuff, anyway? I miss cake. I miss pizza. My cookies are _awful_.”

“No, they’re not,” he says, glancing at the little container by his tray, where the results of her latest attempt at baking are arranged to hide most of the scorch marks from overbaking. “I’m just—saving them for later.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sure. I appreciate you waiting until I’m out of sight to throw them out, though.”

He gives a small, wry smile. “If you want to start working again, that’s fine. But if you don’t feel ready to come back, you can take a longer leave. That might be good, actually. Take another week. Take just one more day, and schedule an appointment. Just once,” he adds before she has the chance to protest. “Just to start with. If you don’t find it helpful, then you don’t have to keep going.”

“I hate it when you make sense.” She sighs, but she manages a small grin.

His watch beeps then, and he glances down to read the reminder flashing on the small screen. “I need to get going. Think about it. Start small. Take Monday off, if you really aren’t feeling up to coming in. I’ll find out what I can about the assignments being lined up for you and the others. Even if it’s nothing exciting, you’ll at least know what to expect.”

“Thanks,” she says as he stands. She gives him a smile, and he nods and heads off, tray and cookies in hand.

 

* * *

 

“I think a lot about food,” Jen tells her doctor at their third session. She’s back on duty, but part-time. It’s easier to only have to wear the uniform for a few hours a day. Right when it starts to be too much, or too little, her day is over, and she goes for a walk to clear her head before heading off to try and bake again, or to sit here in this comfortable armchair in her doctor’s office.

She can say whatever she wants without fear of upsetting the woman facing her, and in a place where only a handful of people know the whole story, it’s a much bigger relief than Jen imagined.

“I finally made cookies that don’t taste like cardboard,” she continues. “I made a mess, but it was nice.”

And work is nice, too. Trip has become popular among the technicians, for his skill and for his stories dealing with archaic technology. He and two new staff members are working on building a replica of one of the computers Trip tinkered with in Silver Hills, for fun. Even people not involved with the project ask about it, all fond smiles and genuine curiosity, and it warms Jen’s heart to know they aren’t looking down on Wes’s world.

“I want to try making pizza one day,” she says, “but I think I’ll need a lot of help with it. It seems like a lot of work.”

They make time to get together, all four of them, when they aren’t with family or old friends. It’s not as often as Jen would like, but it’s good when they manage. Katie hugs everyone too hard, Lucas tells them about getting back on the race track, and Trip tries to get them to agree to go visit Xybria with him.

They promise to go together one day.

“My friends like to make jokes about my cooking. It doesn’t bother me. Actually, it’s great, because it’s true, I’m an awful cook when it comes to twenty-first century foods.”

The first twenty-first century meal she makes for them is fried everything, because she figures it can’t be hard. Lucas helps her narrowly avoid a grease fire, prompting Katie to warn him to stay out of the kitchen.

“It’s not _that_ bad in here,” Jen says, as Katie doubles over with laughter.

“Yeah, but Lucas put too much spray in his hair,” Trip tells her through a bad case of the giggles. “He could catch fire!”

The extra crispy vegetables taste good to them anyway, and even now, days later, Jen smiles at the memory.

“Katie got me oven mitts. They’re pink.” She looks down at her hands. She hasn’t morphed since that last battle in Silver Hills, and when she’s been off duty, she’s only worn the robe-like outfits that are in style in this century since coming back, nothing like the fun, short skirt and boots and pink shirt ensemble she’d grown so fond of. “I love them.”

The lack of variety and color in both fashion and architecture in this time and place, compared to Silver Hills, has both helped and hindered her readjustment. On the one hand, it serves to fully separate the past and the present, and to remind her at every moment of where she is. On the other, all the stark, clean walls and streets, and the repetitive, billowy clothes feel alien and monotonous. Living in a city with virtually no crime means her opportunities to morph are just as nonexistent, so she is just as dull.

“I really miss that about Silver Hills. I miss it all. I’m glad the world is safe, I’m glad the last really dangerous criminal is in custody, but—” She breathes through the wave of guilt and self-hatred that surges for even having this thought. Still, she forces herself to say it, to squeeze the poison out of her mind and heart. “I’m bored. People’s lives are more important than that, I know, but this is how I feel. I can do more. I just wish I knew how to, here.”

Going full-time won’t change that. Longer days of the same old thing will only end in her leaving early anyway, unable to bear what had once excited her so.

“I guess I should just try to make pizza. That’ll be an adventure all on its own.”

 

* * *

 

It takes longer than she’d like, but in time, she accepts the fact that she will never feel whole here, and starts to seek out the good in what she has.

There’s her family, all of them proud of her for completing such an important, dangerous mission and saving countless generations of people in the process. There’s her team, her other family, who understand her shifting moods because they deal with the memories, too. There’s Alex, unfailing in friendship, even though it must hurt sometimes to know they can’t go back to how they used to be.

There’s Time Force, not sending her on assignments where she could get hurt, even though she’s more than qualified to deal with the worst of situations—at least, not so soon. They have her train more first when she goes back to full-time. She welcomes the exercise, the freedom to take out her frustration on a punching bag or a target, the chance to try and outrun the sadness. Simulations are the best, demanding the most of her, giving her the greatest challenges to overcome.

She starts to breathe easy, and stops being afraid of what may come of bringing up the memories whenever they come to her.

“The worst is when I dream about him,” she tells Katie one day when it’s just the two of them for lunch on the roof. It’s too crowded inside, too noisy in the courtyard.

“Because you wake up, right?”

Jen nods.

“I dream a lot about the clocktower,” Katie continues, smiling. “About waking up and looking at the beams and those giant gears.” She pauses, shrugging, her smile fading. “When I wake up for real, I never know whether I should be happy or sad.”

“Yeah.” She pokes at her food with her spoon, turning the rice and soybeans over and over in the cup. Her appetite has all but vanished for the day, but she needs to stay nourished. “Remember when we moved in there? I never thought I’d love it as much as I do— did. Do. I still do.”

Katie puts a hand on Jen’s forearm, nodding. “Me too.”

Jen scrapes some rice off the bottom of the cup as she meets Katie’s gaze again. “Last night, I dreamt we were sitting together on the roof of the clocktower. Nothing fancy. But I _felt_ him, I felt us holding hands. _Holding hands_.” She laughs, equal parts amused and self-loathing. “We barely even held hands when we had the chance, and now I’m… like some little kid.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Katie tells her, giving her forearm a gentle squeeze. “And you know, I bet Wes has it just as bad. Worse, because he only has Eric to talk to about this stuff, and his dad, but his dad was never a Ranger, and Eric doesn’t seem like someone who’d be easy to talk to. At least we have each other.”

“I don’t want him to have it worse, or even just as bad,” Jen murmurs. “I want him to be happy for the rest of his life.”

“I’m sure he wants the same for you.” Patting Jen’s arm, Katie pulls back her hand and has a spoonful of her rice and red beans. “Do you have plans for tomorrow night? Lucas wants us all to go over to his place and have dinner with him and Nadira.”

“That sounds nice.” Jen has stopped resenting Nadira for how easy she must have it, having gained so much when she and her father chose to change their ways. She’s stopped resenting her, but she hasn’t begun to like her. It’s all relative, yes, and she doesn’t know Nadira’s struggles, but everyone Nadira cares about is here. And yet, in a lot of ways, she has Nadira to thank for everything going the way it did. The mission in Silver Hills, and Ransik’s ultimate surrender, all came about because of Nadira’s choices.

Life is so funny, in that way that doesn’t make Jen smile.

“I was just going to try making brownies,” she adds, shrugging. “Maybe I’ll have a batch done in time for dinner.”

“You don’t have to go, you know. No one would blame you if you didn’t.”

There’s no judgment in Katie’s voice, but Jen avoids her gaze anyway, scooping up a spoonful of rice and stuffing it into her mouth.

They finish eating in silence. The food feels like rocks in Jen’s stomach, and the taste of it turns bitter on her tongue.

“What I wouldn’t do for a burger,” mutters Katie, sighing heavily.

Jen snickers, though her heart isn’t in it. “I’m working up to that.”

“I’m going to regret saying this,” Katie tells her as she stands, stretching in the sunlight, “but I’m willing to be a taste tester.” She lifts her face to the sun and drops her hands to her sides with a sigh. The smile on her face looks like it comes easily to her.

One day, it’ll be like that for Jen, too. For now, she settles for giving Katie the best grin she can. “You don’t get to blame me if you get sick.”

“We taste it together. Deal?”

“Deal.”

 

* * *

 

She stays at headquarters late the day of the dinner at Lucas’s, picking up the adaptive simulation where she’d left off the day before. Today has been good, with a little action in the form of a chase. It wasn’t a mutant this time, just a college kid who took a prank too far. The rush of adrenaline had felt nice, but the lack of a fight at the end of the pursuit had left Jen restless, so she’s here, on her own time, trying to beat her own score and push the AI as far as it’ll go.

Her second run is genuinely challenging. She takes a shot to the arm before taking out an enemy and has to fight her way through the rest of it with the training suit restricting movement, creating the effect of an injured arm without the pain. She doesn’t win, but she doesn’t fail, either, managing to stay in the game, as it were, until the timer runs out.

The virtual environment disappears, leaving behind an empty room. Jen stands near the center of it, still breathing heavily from the effort. She’s picturing the whole thing again, thinking of what she could’ve done differently, how she could’ve avoided the fake injury.

“That was impressive,” comes Alex’s voice through the speakers.

Jen turns towards the window by the exit, where the glow of the control panel makes him look like a ghost.

“Another few seconds, and I would’ve beaten it, shot arm and all,” she says, giving half a smirk.

He looks down at the panel, tilting his head slightly to the side. “Yes, I think you would’ve.”

She leaves the room and joins him by the console, recording the results, pulling up her file to look at her progress. And to show off, if she’s honest. To prove to him that at least some part of her is doing perfectly fine now that she’s back in the year 3000.

“What are you doing down here?” she asks, waving her scores and charts out of view. Working late isn’t out of the ordinary for him, but coming to the training floor after hours is.

“Looking for you.”

She frowns up at him as the computer begins to shut down. “What for?”

“There’s something I want to show you.”

She stares at him, waiting for more, but he gives her nothing, serious and proper, like he’s on the clock. There’s no budging him when he gets like this, so she sighs and nods. “Okay. Just give me a minute to get changed.”

She leaves him to take care of locking up the sim room while she changes out of the full-body suit and into her uniform. Then, together, they head to the elevator, where he keys in a code that sends them descending into one of the subbasements.

“A restricted area,” she remarks as the elevator slows to a stop, one eyebrow arched.

As they head down the hall, he looks over at her. “Down here is where I monitored your team’s progress in the past.” He pauses, grimacing for just a moment, doubtless pushing away his own memories about her time in Silver Hills. “That, and sending you the Shadow Winger, was the most I could do for you all at the time.”

His voice loses some of its strength as he finishes speaking, and though he’s facing forward now, Jen sees the shadow on his face and the tension in his shoulders. All this time, she’d assumed he’d woken up after she and the others had left in the time ship, miraculously recovered, and gone right back to work, clinging to the rulebook when it was the only thing that made sense. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it really was that simple. But maybe people say the same of her and the others, that they just went back in time to complete a mission, nothing unheard of, and that now everything will just go back to normal. Alex may not have spent all that time living in another century, but so much happened in so short a time that he, too, must have had to race to catch up to it, to stay on top of his job, to save the world.

Even if she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t blame him, so she says nothing now as she follows him into a dimly lit room with a window that looks out into a zord hangar.

She walks a circle around the room, taking in the consoles and buttons and screens that saved her and the others more times than she cares to count. How long has this been here? How long have the restricted floors housed technology that can glimpse through time with the same ease as anyone can turn on a television screen?

“This is amazing,” she says, looking up as Alex approaches her. “Trip would love to see all of this tech.”

“Interesting that you should mention that.” He hands her a tablet, tapping a light on the side of it when it’s in her hands.

The screen lights up with what looks like a personnel profile, complete with holographic image in the upper left corner.

“Martin Hall,” Jen reads, “currently residing in… 2717?”

“He’s been sighted in possession of anachronistic technology.” He taps the same side light, and the picture flickers out of view, replaced by a distinctly thirty-first century gadget. “Not only is he putting the natural progression of weapon development in danger, he is also stealing small but significant amounts of money from local banks.”

“How did he get this?”

He taps the side of the tablet, shutting it off, and meets her gaze. “That’s what Time Force is hoping you could find out.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You’ve traveled before, and your experience reduces the risk that you’ll be unable to adapt quickly enough to avoid notice in a new time. You’ve more than proven you’re capable of performing under pressure, and in spite of prolonged exposure to a different environment, you’ve demonstrated incredible resilience.”

“Okay—” Handing him back the tablet, she shakes her head. “I’m flattered by that assessment. Really. But I’m—you want me to go find this guy?” When he nods, half of her wants to jump at the chance. The other half of her recoils at it, remembers the unspoken dangers of time travel, forming bonds only to have to sever them, and the feeling that she doesn’t belong in any time or place anymore.

“You’re a Ranger,” he reminds her. “If anyone can do this, it’s you.”

“What about the others?”

“They’d support you from here.” He gestures to the space, the control room and its computers. “You said yourself that Trip would love to see this.”

She frowns. “You’ve thought this all out.” Then, looking back out at the zord bay, she adds, “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Setting the tablet down on the console nearest them, he walks up next to her and follows her gaze. “It’s up to you, of course. But if you ask me, it seems like this would be more your speed than your everyday police work.”

Nodding, she glances at the now blank tablet, then lowers her gaze to the console in front of her. He’s right. The work she’s been doing since returning to this century has been little more than a distraction from the undercurrent of sadness that colors every day. To do something that means more, even if it isn’t half as important as those months in Silver Hills, might be good for everyone involved. So what if that’s selfish? If, potentially, the whole world benefits, isn’t that good?

Meeting his eyes, she nods. “I’ll do it.”

 

* * *

 

The mission isn’t at all like the one in 2001. It’s faster paced, more like espionage than the endurance race that had been fighting Ransik’s mutants. Within a week, she’s found their target and his source, and another two days later, with Lucas and Katie traveling to back her up, the criminal is apprehended, and his provider is taken brought back to 3000, the year from which he’d fled with dreams of committing crimes so ahead of his time that he’d never be caught. ID cards given to the Rangers by Trip and a handful of technicians make their interactions with local law enforcement seamless, and their arrival in Millennium City is quiet and painless.

The post-travel procedures seem less cumbersome this time around. The residual, buzzing energy from the trip carries her through the full day of meetings and debriefs and exit conferences, all the way to her apartment, where she has enough strength left to shower and change before falling asleep as soon as her head touches the pillow.

Then, it’s a mandatory two days off. Memory adaptation isn’t mentioned even once, and when she asks him about it, Alex tells her it looks like it will be classified as an optional arrival procedure for all officers.

She makes brownies for the team’s celebratory dinner and smiles at Nadira when they say hello to one another. For the first time since coming back from Silver Hills, she’s not actively pushing away thoughts of Wes. He’s there, always, in the back of her mind; but tonight, the hollow ache of his absence is just a whisper.

This becomes their new rhythm. Time Force identifies anomalies in time, and Jen goes to fix them, with the others providing backup as necessary. Some missions take longer than others to complete, but overall, she feels better—different, sometimes like another person altogether, but better. The spells of sadness come further apart, and the memories of Silver Hills hurt less and less.

She stops simply existing, and starts living again.

 

* * *

 

The fugitive mutants move so quickly that she loses her communications equipment a few weeks into the chase, but she keeps going. This is too important a mission to abandon just because she can’t phone home. Worse comes to worst, she makes a few waves that get picked up back at headquarters, and someone comes to find her.

Another week later, the trail leads her to 2002 and Turtle Cove, and the memories of Silver Hills and the year before slam into her so hard she almost drops the single backpack she’s carrying. But no, she says to herself as she catches her breath and settles in for a long night. She’s on a mission, the most dangerous one she’s been on since Ransik led her and the others so far from home. She will not jeopardize countless lives for one selfish moment. Let destiny be cruel. She will stand and face it, and she will emerge unbroken.

 

* * *

 

A floating turtle island is as safe as a base gets, Jen thinks as she and Wes walk side by side behind this new team of Rangers. The adrenaline rush from the battle they’ve just fled from is finally starting to fade, so the Animarium seems even more magical than it might otherwise. It takes its time, carrying her through the rest of the day, and it’s only later, when Lucas, Trip, and Katie have come to join them, and after Ransik has told his story and Jen has decided to trust him, that she feels the need to rest.

She sits by the fire as the others settle in, powerless to stop smiling. They’re all here, all together again, and the fate she’d resigned herself to has twisted and turned so she and Wes can be in the same place at the same time against all odds.

He joins her under the cover of her blanket, and his smile melts the resigned determination that has held her up for so long. If she falls apart, he will help put her back together. She is safe, and she is happy.

“I knew that someday I’d see you again, Jen,” Wes tells her.

And without missing a beat, she says, “I guess I can change my destiny, too.” After all this time, when she’d given up hope, he’d kept it alive for her. How could she have let herself forget the most important thing he’s taught her?

It doesn’t matter anymore, what she has believed since leaving the twenty-first century, what she’s done to keep herself going, or how he’s been working through pain of being apart. They’re here, right now. To busy herself with guilt would be to waste the gift that is their reunion, so she says nothing more as she settles against him.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Wes says the next day, after the battle, before they join the others on their trip back to the Animarium for a picnic. “You’re in Time Force black ops now?”

“Sort of,” Jen answers, smiling wryly and rolling her eyes when he glances at her uniform, which she’d just finished folding into her bag. Yes, it is an easy assumption to make. “We call it Shadow Ops.”

He snickers. “Let me guess, Alex named the group?” When she frowns, he adds, “Shadow Winger, Time Shadow—sounds like his kind of thing.”

Pausing, she considers it, then she shakes her head, laughing. “I hadn’t thought of that. But yes, he named the division. Renamed, actually. It’s a privilege to be part of it.”

“They couldn’t have picked a better officer for the job.” He nods, and his smile fades a little.

Yes. The job that has brought her here, the job that awaits her return. “We have mandatory time off after every travel event,” she tells him. “Usually two days, but we might get more for this. Who’s to say we can’t spend it here?” Surely Time Force will understand, and if they don’t, Alex will probably argue the case for them. For _her_.

“Well, I’m not going to stop you trying.” His smile widens again, and he nods. “But in the meantime, let’s go celebrate.”

 

* * *

 

She never wants this day to end.

She wants Nadira and Lucas to keep escaping Ransik’s watch, just to see Ransik fume. She wants to listen to Max’s music and clap in time with everyone as he dances and loses himself to each song, wants to watch Katie beat everyone at arm wrestling, wants Wes to keep feeding her grapes and the junk food she’s missed so much. She wants to see Eric smile and play as he and Taylor let their guard down long enough to enjoy their time together.

She wants forever here, with all of them, but she knows she can’t have it all.

“We’re set to leave tomorrow,” she tells Wes as they watch the sunset together, away from the others, on the top of a hill in the Animarium. “We’ll probably have another hearing on Ransik’s case, after what happened today.”

“That’s good,” he says, glancing down at her. “He did a lot of good today. He deserves at least that much.”

She meets his gaze, and she holds her breath while she figures out if she’s about to laugh or cry the moment she exhales.

It’s neither.

All this time, she’d imagined that, if by some miracle they met again, she’d run to him like on the day she’d said good-bye, and they’d kiss ‘til they were breathless, a celebration of defying destiny and getting the chance they’d been denied before. And while there’d literally been fire and explosions when they’d first been reunited, this moment now is far removed from the tumult of battle. Their first kiss is soft, slow, as if time is not against them, as if they are safe from the whims of a fate that started them on this world one thousand years apart.

There are tears on her cheeks when they pull apart, and he wipes them away as she tells him, “I don’t want to go back. Not again. If I do, I don’t think you and I will be this lucky again.”

“Who knows?” he says, but his smile falters. Even all the faith he has in them buckles under the weight of their reality.

“It wouldn’t work anyway, right?” She chuckles, sniffles, more tears tumbling down her cheeks. “I don’t have valid ID in this century. I don’t even _exist_ , technically. And you’re a Silver Guardian now, you’re their leader. It wouldn’t work.” She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “It wouldn’t work.”

“Jen.” He places his hands on her shoulders, waiting in silence until she meets his gaze again. “I’d do whatever it takes for this to work. I want more than anything for us to be together, but if you choose to go, then you go. I won’t stop loving you. And if you want to stay, then—”

He looks away, and she feels her heart stop in that breathless moment. On the edge of a precipice, in the eye of the storm, a second is forever, and time does not exist.

“What’s the harm in trying?” He smiles, boyish and hopeful. “We’ve fought destiny before. We can change it again.”

Yes, they have, and these past few days in Turtle Cove are proof of that. This sunset, this real, true vacation, are proof, bearing witness to the power in every choice they’ve made.

She nods, smiling, then settles her head on his shoulder.

The sun sets below the horizon, the clouds burning as the last rays of the day disappear. This time, she won’t lose faith.

 

* * *

 

Early the next morning, Alex sighs, his lips pressed firmly together as he glances down at something off screen. “I suspected this might happen. As soon as we heard where and when the Mut-Orgs had decided to stage their attack, I knew.”

“I love him, Alex,” Jen tells him, as if that’s all the explanation he needs. It’s all she can give, at any rate. “I’d hate myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t try to stay.”

He sighs again, nodding, and arches both eyebrows. “There’s no precedent for this kind of situation, even considering one chrono morpher is already permanently in the past, so I’m not able to make any guarantees. However, given the importance of the time period you’re currently in for what we know of human history, it’s possible you may be permitted to stay on with Time Force without having to come back.”

“If I have to go AWOL, then I will.”

“I know.” He smiles, the grin slight and the tiniest bit mischievous. “But I’m sure your family would prefer it if you didn’t become a fugitive.”

She nods, looking down at her morpher. “I won’t go back until you can tell me for sure what’s been decided.”

“Of course. I’ll be in touch the moment I find out.” He nods, reaching out to end the call.

“Wait,” Jen says. When he looks up again, she continues, “Thank you, Alex. For everything. You don’t have to do this, but you are, and I appreciate—”

“It’s no problem, Jennifer,” he interrupts. “Sometimes destiny makes mistakes, and it’s our job to fix them.” He pauses a moment, then adds, “Wes taught me that.”

“Yeah. He taught me that, too.” She smiles at him, nods, and lets him end the call.

 

* * *

 

In the end, they win the fight against fate.

Jen stays on as Pink Ranger and full-time twenty-first century contact for Time Force, going on assignments as needed and reporting at least weekly to the thirty-first century via video, and in person if required.

In Silver Hills, Mr. Collins’s money solves many of the problems Jen thought she might encounter, but even then, his house doesn’t become home, nor does the clocktower, where she and Wes stay, and where she runs the odd jobs store on a much reduced schedule. Home stopped being a place, or a time, a long while ago. In this century, she misses the conveniences that she used to take for granted where she grew up, and the friends and teammates that have become her family. On her visits to the future, she misses the food and the noise of the past, and her new friends, and the love of her life. But in the shadow between the two periods, she finds it.

Home becomes people who warm her heart, moments where the whole of time and space falls away and leaves behind an unending present. It’s laughing with Katie and Trip and Lucas and Nadira. It’s learning to cook twenty-first century foods with Wes by her side to rescue her before she makes too big a mistake. It’s seeing Ransik now and then and not hating him. It’s hearing Alex tell her she’s done well on a mission and that her baking has much improved.

It’s seeing new Rangers come and go to save the world, and trusting them to succeed.

It’s joining a new fight twelve years later, standing tall with everyone who’s ever answered the call to arms.

Home is looking back at the life she’s lived, comparing it to the life she’d once thought she’d been fated for, and understanding, fully, that destiny is in the hands of every person alive.

Home is curling up in bed with Wes at the end of a long day.

“I love you,” she tells him, instead of _good night_.

“I love you, too,” he answers, and it becomes the lullaby that sings her to sleep.


End file.
